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Marin Community Clinics recovered from ransomware attack of last month

 

California's Marin Community Clinics has recently suffered from ransomware attack that has caused disruption to their IT systems last month (i.e. June 2019). The ransomware attack on the Marin Community Clinics occurred on the evening of June 19, 2019, between 9pm and 10pm. As a result of this ransomware attack, widespread file encryption has happened.

 

"We had a cyber attack on Wednesday night," said Mitesh Popat, CEO of the Marin Community Clinics', on June 21, 2019. He said that the hackers have locked down computer systems of the clinics' and then demanded a ransom for unlocking it.

 

While the computer systems are down and hospital has been operating in an emergency mode, the medical services were still provided to the patients. During that time, the patient information has been recorded on paper.

 

Popat added that after consulting with their network operator, the Marin Community Clinics has paid an unrevealed percentage of ransom demand to the unidentified hacker. Even after having the keys for unlocking encrypted files, the recovery has taken some time. The Marin Community Clinics only was able to restart use of their computer system on Friday (i.e. on June 21, 2019) night.

 

"We're not totally out of the woods, but we're feeling good because we've had the system up three days now. There is always reinfection risk hanging over your head. We're trying to play it super safe and super cautious," said Popat.

 

Popat said the ransomware that was used in this attack is known as Sodinokibi, which has gained access via a computer server. "It was through our network operator," said Popat. However, he declined to identify that operator, citing the security concerns.

 

Marin Independent Journal was told by the CEO of the Marin Community Clinics' that patient data has not been compromised. He also added that no or little information was lost in this attack.

 

Matt Willis, Public Health Officer of Marin County, said that none of county's systems have been affected by this ransomware attack. Willis added that mock phishing attacks were conducted by the county, in order to educate the county workers regarding dangers of opening the unidentified emails.

 

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